THE NEW YORKER

Cover Story: Kim Jong-un’s Big Announcement

BY MINA KANEKO AND FRANÇOISE MOULY

January 8, 2016

The new year begins and, in defiance of even its allies in Beijing, North Korea and its dictator Kim Jong-un test a nuclear weapon. An H-bomb, they insist, but the atomic kind is frightening enough. “Whatever else one says about North Korea, its leaders do have a talent for showmanship,” Barbara Demick writes, a sentiment echoed in Anita Kunz’s cover, “New Toys,” for next week’s issue of The New Yorker. “As if everything else this past year weren’t enough,” Kunz says, “now Kim Jong-un shows up again.”